Got another e-Mail from Finnish recordshop X, stating that the re-print wasn't succesfull either. Too bad to be true, but all the good things are worth the wait and the right quality.

Seriously...? I'm beginning to believe that this album is just too dark and evil to be captured on vinyl

Despite all the waiting time for the vinyl version, it's at least good to hear that CM really does a great effort to make it a good quality vinyl release!_________________"Celtic Frost - A Dying God" Documentary with English subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HN8kGB4urg

I just bought the mediabook edition. Excellent packaging and artwork, I' ve listened to it a couple of times, sounds like it is almost divided in two parts, the first one, which is heavier and more aggressive and the second one which is more atmospheric and experimental. The second one is more interesting, in my opinion. Anyway, I think it' s darker than the first album, believe it or not.

And now I completely puzzled by colour of MC cover. Looks, there are two version of the cover, one(in the dark colours) on the "releases" page, and one(in the light colours) on the Tom's blog. So which cover is the real?_________________Keep it beardy!

And now I completely puzzled by colour of MC cover. Looks, there are two version of the cover, one(in the dark colours) on the "releases" page, and one(in the light colours) on the Tom's blog. So which cover is the real?

the "real" cover is the dark one , Mordor VII . you can see it on the limited edition box set , between the candles and the poster .
I suppose you call the box itself as the "light" one , Landschaft XVI ._________________Please , let me die in Solitude ...

And now I completely puzzled by colour of MC cover. Looks, there are two version of the cover, one(in the dark colours) on the "releases" page, and one(in the light colours) on the Tom's blog. So which cover is the real?

the "real" cover is the dark one , Mordor VII . you can see it on the limited edition box set , between the candles and the poster .
I suppose you call the box itself as the "light" one , Landschaft XVI .

And now I completely puzzled by colour of MC cover. Looks, there are two version of the cover, one(in the dark colours) on the "releases" page, and one(in the light colours) on the Tom's blog. So which cover is the real?

the "real" cover is the dark one , Mordor VII . you can see it on the limited edition box set , between the candles and the poster .
I suppose you call the box itself as the "light" one , Landschaft XVI .

For those who are interested, here is the original work of Jacques Callot, which inspired the first song Tree of Suffocating Souls
exciting and surprising perspective on the "Thirty Years War" ( La Guerre de Trente ans ) described by 18 drawings, some of which are incredibly realistic about the horrors of the conflict that marked the History of France.

6 verses written in old French further highlight each works
IMO, the style of drawings also seem to have inspired the 9 famous pics of the Roman Polanski movie "The Ninth Gate"_________________Please , let me die in Solitude ...

It's my first post here so I don't know how people will take this but anyway....
I bought the digibook version and gave the album a first listen. My opinion, disappointing and by far the worst post CF ( I consider tryptikon basically CF ) reunion album that Tom has made . Monotheist and eparisterai daimones had, IMO, the problem of vastly downtuned guitars giving them a sound , esp. the CF album, like machine head were playing hell hammer/early CF music. The songs though were excellent , esp in the first tryptikon album . Here when I listened to the first track I was thrilled since the downtuning of the guitars was far less evident and the sound a bit more old school plus "tree of suffocating souls" is an excellent beginning for the album . Until breathing the album was good , though I wasn't thrilled with boleskin house .

Then the album quality takes a nosedive with aurorae and never recovers. Boring, experimental songs (not like the genius of the experimental songs of "into the pandemonium"), really tiring riffs going on and on without a change in pace or some solos and an atmosphere that reminds me more gothic bands than CF/Tryptikon. The funny thing is that I expected songs with titles like "demon pact" and "in the sleep of death " to be epic songs like "abyss within my soul" .

The ending of the album speaks for itself , in the end of eparistera daimones we had the monstrous (in a good way) "the prolonging " , here we have an almost gothic song , with female vocals and no changes in the riffs at all .
Tom's vocals are also far worse than before, here he tries to sing with a death metal style in various songs and looses the unique feeling his vocals gave in previous albums , and the album is certainly softer than his previous 2 efforts .

To conclude I'll just say that I wish monotheist had this guitar sound and production and that I get the feeling that Tom is starting to get bored with metal again, as evident by the MANY quiet parts that this album has.

Now I don't know the tolerance of this forum but this review comes from a 20+ year fan of Tom's work .

No worries. An honest opinion is a valid opinion. There used to be a guy that posted here for years, who was very vocal about his feelings about Monotheist. Despite other shenanigans, he was largely respected.

I have not yet heard the record, as it has not been released in North America, yet. I am reading a ton of very, very positive reviews, so it is good to hear a counter-point._________________I am Lazarus, risen from my tomb.

very interresting and respectable opinion. in fact, all the negative points made by fulcizombie are, for me, the positives; I truly love the direction taken by the band. May be more gothic, certainly deeper and richer in terms of musicality. I'm not trying to discover an album of pure metal when I listen to an album of Celtic frost or Triptykon. I know I penetrate the new work of Tom G. Warrior, which means something so vast and far beyond the limits of a strict musical and artistic genre.
I 've heard Melana Chasmata only one time . next listening 'll be with my double vinyl that just arrived or on the cd mediabook for the second time.
a serious listening .An album like this requires 3, 4 may be 5 listens to appreciate it at its true value. This is exactly what I'm looking for ._________________Please , let me die in Solitude ...

The death metal vocals are from v.santura and dominate two songs, in a bad way .
Anyway after a second listen still disappointed. Mind you that my expectations were incredibly high cause I loved eparistera diamonds . It's a great metal album but not a great tom warrior album, IMO .
Why oh why couldn't monotheist have this guitar sound

It's my first post here so I don't know how people will take this but anyway....
I bought the digibook version and gave the album a first listen. My opinion, disappointing and by far the worst post CF ( I consider tryptikon basically CF ) reunion album that Tom has made . Monotheist and eparisterai daimones had, IMO, the problem of vastly downtuned guitars giving them a sound , esp. the CF album, like machine head were playing hell hammer/early CF music. The songs though were excellent , esp in the first tryptikon album . Here when I listened to the first track I was thrilled since the downtuning of the guitars was far less evident and the sound a bit more old school plus "tree of suffocating souls" is an excellent beginning for the album . Until breathing the album was good , though I wasn't thrilled with boleskin house .

Then the album quality takes a nosedive with aurorae and never recovers. Boring, experimental songs (not like the genius of the experimental songs of "into the pandemonium"), really tiring riffs going on and on without a change in pace or some solos and an atmosphere that reminds me more gothic bands than CF/Tryptikon. The funny thing is that I expected songs with titles like "demon pact" and "in the sleep of death " to be epic songs like "abyss within my soul" .

The ending of the album speaks for itself , in the end of eparistera daimones we had the monstrous (in a good way) "the prolonging " , here we have an almost gothic song , with female vocals and no changes in the riffs at all .
Tom's vocals are also far worse than before, here he tries to sing with a death metal style in various songs and looses the unique feeling his vocals gave in previous albums , and the album is certainly softer than his previous 2 efforts .

To conclude I'll just say that I wish monotheist had this guitar sound and production and that I get the feeling that Tom is starting to get bored with metal again, as evident by the MANY quiet parts that this album has.

Now I don't know the tolerance of this forum but this review comes from a 20+ year fan of Tom's work .

Interesting. I'll bite, against better judgment.

There has been an instance or two in the past when members of this board have been angrily labeled "fanboys". This being Triptykon's discussion forum, it is perhaps logical that many here indeed do appreciate the band's course. But the forum has also always provided a healthy share of scrutiny or even outright criticism. And there's nothing wrong with that; it simply reflects the reality of human taste and opinions. I, too, have rather pronounced opinions regarding certain topics (and albums).

The above thoughts about Triptykon's latest album definitely are a valid opinion. There's no reason they shouldn't be posted here.

In any event, there's a fine line between an actual opinion and a situation where somebody projects something into anyone of us in the band which doesn't even remotely represent our thinking or our manner of procedure but rather reflects the thinking of the individual making the comment. Unfortunately, that happens quite frequently, and we sometimes wonder by what kind of authority individuals who have never met us for even one minute state with utmost certainty what has taken place in the rehearsal bunker, what has prompted us to do certain things, or what has been going on in our minds during a production.

There's also another issue: if a band doesn't work randomly or haphazardly, i.e., if a band exerts enough control over its industry surroundings to create exactly the album it envisioned, can such an album be faulted? Granted, the album might not fulfill somebody else's opinion of what it should have been, but if the band desired to make exactly this album and wouldn't have created it any differently even if it had been exposed to such criticism and arguments beforehand, then the band has achieved its objective and is, to some extent, immune. Monotheist and Eparistera Daimones were two such albums.

At any rate, I, too, think Melana Chasmata might be the most deficient post-Celtic Frost reunion album I have been involved in. I have made uncounted such statements within the band during the extended time we were working on the album, and there exists a long string of very unambiguous mails to this effect, addressed to the band's management and to our partners at Century Media.

Melana Chasmata was an exceedingly difficult and complex album to make, and that is never a good sign. There were reasons for these difficulties, and they were far from superficial, on more than just one level. In the end, I couldn't have worked on this album for even one more day, even though I seriously pondered at least a remix, if not far more drastic revisions. But I eventually felt I needed to wrap it up and thus also conclude the entire emotional landscape attached to it.

Frankly, I personally am utterly puzzled by the extremely favourable opinions the album has garnered from most in our audience as well as from reviewers, record company, management, and fellow band members. My own stance is far, far more critical, and I have so far been unable to listen to the album as a whole. The faint light on the horizon, for me, is that I felt the same way about To Mega Therion in late 1985. Only a few years down the road did I begin to digest that album and its production, eventually enabling me to think of it as one of Celtic Frost's most significant albums.

In spite of all of the above, Aurorae is, to me, one of the most important songs I have ever created, and it came out almost exactly as it needs to be.

A few closing thoughts on some of the contents of fulcizombie's post:

Meggido is absolutely correct in stating "I'm not trying to discover an album of pure metal when I listen to an album of Celtic frost or Triptykon." If one is seeking a pure metal album, I suppose hardly any of the records I created during the past 32 years qualify - not even Hellhammer. They qualify as outlets of how I perceive music and how my own musical taste works. Like any review reflects the personal opinion and perception of the reviewer, my music reflects my very own opinion and perception of music. This has never changed, nor will it change.

I personally do not rate Into The Pandemonium as "genius" at all. And I know I am not alone in this among former Celtic Frost members. Into The Pandemonium is a deeply flawed album by a still extremely inexperienced (and embattled) band. The very first time we were able to properly integrate experiments on that level into the band's identity and sound was 19 long years later, on Monotheist.

We began experimenting with different (lower) tunings already in the 1980s, and I will never change back. Rock bands have experimented with tuning ever since the 1960s and 1970s, Black Sabbath being one of them. Look at Stephan Eicher's incredible early work, for example. I have never understood where on this planet there is supposed to be a law that regulates how one has to tune a guitar. That would be ludicrous, much like e.g. regulating that a painter may only paint by downstroke. But then, rigid regulation is how the gentrified world works, isn't it. That's exactly why I lived my entire life differently.

I can fully understand that a listener in today's world will think of Triptykon's music as "experimental" (even "boringly experimental") or gothic. Fact is, none of us have ever consciously steered the music to be "experimental" or "gothic". That's not how we ever create our songs. If something we do appears "experimental" to somebody, it simply reflects that the listener in question deems that such a thing cannot/should not be done in metal. We (in Celtic Frost and later) have never thought like this, otherwise we would have never used a violin and female vocals on Morbid Tales (at a time when such a thing was rated intolerable) or created tracks such as Dance Macabre. And much more on later releases. These things simply reflect our own musical influences and listening tastes (new wave, jazz, classical, electronic).

I personally perceive the term "gothic", in its present connotation, as a swearword. I cringe when I hear this word and most bands associated with it today. I would never consciously add anything "gothic" to my music. The elements that younger listeners of Celtic Frost's and Triptykon's music might today designate as "gothic" are in reality the effects of our intense affinity for new wave music of the late 1970s and early 1980s, elements we have been incorporating into our music ever since the creation of Celtic Frost. This included Christian Death, Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Joy Division, Tubeway Army, Dead Can Dance, Anne Clark, Japan, The Cure, The Sisters Of Mercy, and many more.

Once again, this is a matter of taste. And it certainly is my taste.

The first album by Triptykon, which apparently is so beloved, is neither called Eparisterai Daimones nor Eparistera Diamonds.

And yes, this post is far to long. It's a convoluted topic, this album. And I haven't even talked about the funk album yet.